Given that as you read this, five days after the winter solstice, most of us will probably still be up to our necks in terrible weather to go with the cold turkey, it seems appropriate to air your thoughts on the growing difficulty of defining the seasons.

Dr Kate Lewthwaite’s contribution caught my eye, as she has the splendid title of UK Phenology Network Manager of the Woodland Trust: “It is quite clear that using traditional natural markers of the seasons is no longer reliable.

“I manage a project called Nature’s Calendar at the Woodland Trust and our UK network of 40,000 volunteer recorders has been providing us with some startling case studies for many years. They systematically record the signs of seasonal change through natural events, otherwise known by the scientific title of phenology, and the evidence of upheaval in the natural world is mounting. We have had confused frogs spawning in November and daffodils flowering well before Christmas. We also receive reports each year of spring blossom in autumn and insects such as ladybirds and some bumblebees active throughout the winter. The average dates of many of these spring events are also moving earlier.

“Sadly these examples aren’t just a quirk, but we believe denote the far more serious effects of climate change on the UK’s native wildlife and on its traditional habitats, particularly the UK’s dwindling areas of ancient woodland. So I think the seasons are, sadly, now a redundant concept.”

Ruth Page supplies a variation on an old joke: “It is well known that here in Whitley Bay we have nine months of winter and three of awful weather.” And Karl Williams, of Glasgow, says: “Alternatively the Scottish calendar could be adopted, which only has two seasons: June and winter.”

Peter Entwistle, who ought to be disqualified as he writes from Cannes, where I don’t suppose they see much snow, fluffy or otherwise, adds: “I entirely agree that the seasons are flexible and certainly not bounded by equinoxes and solstices. Leave the equinoxes and solstices to the publishers of diaries and almanacs. The seasons are for poets, nature lovers and commuters.”

And Malcolm Bermange spotted something apposite: “I know that most of your readers are in the northern hemisphere, but I still think it somewhat parochial that in last Monday’s Daily Universal Register you stated that ‘worldwide’ it is the winter solstice.”

Regule-ar feature

Back to words that ought to exist but don’t. John Berge writes: “Once in Cairo some years ago my wife and I were obviously looking horrified at the antics of the traffic. Our guide explained that they do not have our ‘regules’. I took regules to cover rules and/or regulations. It would save a lot of key strokes if it covered both.”

Michael White recalls a word “invented by the writers of the US sitcom Seinfeld: ‘unvitation’, meaning to receive an invitation to a celebration — birthday, engagement or the like — that the sender knows the recipient cannot attend. The ‘unvitation’ is designed to make the recipient feel guilty, so provoking him or her to send a nicer gift.”

Meanwhile, I have a candidate for 2009 word of the year: “immersive”. A couple of weeks ago Front Row on BBC Radio 4 devoted an entire item to its sudden ubiquity in arts reviews, but I was unconvinced until last week, when I discovered our film reviewer Wendy Ide describing Avatar as “an overwhelming, immersive spectacle”. QED.

Answered back

I can’t resist reproducing another of the “To Correspondents” paragraphs that appeared regularly in The Times in the 1830s and 1840s:

“The correspondent who complains of the non-attendance of a Police Magistrate should lodge his complaint at the Home-office. The letter of Mr Meyer should be sent direct to the person addressed. The letter on railways is an advertisement. We are sorry that we cannot find room for the letter of ‘Candidus,’ Regent’s-park. The folly of an obstinate old nobleman, in not repairing his windows, is merely ludicrous: it does not concern any one but himself, although an ill-disposed heir might perhaps take advantage of it. Who is ‘Vindex,’ of the United Service Club? The statement which he notices came from a man of the highest respectability, and we shall not publish an anonymous contradiction. ‘Vindex’ writes in so bitter and violent a spirit that he at least is unfit to sit on any court-martial in a political case.” That’s telling them.

Gift wrapped

As it’s Christmas I’m allowing us two small gifts. First, Sheila Rhodes, of Hertfordshire: “Please may we wish all your puzzle compilers a happy and peaceful Christmas? Teatime in this household has been made hugely enjoyable with the daily crosswords, codewords and Su Dokus. So thank you to all those responsible.”

And from Councillor John Bale, of Leeds: “Many thanks for another good year with The Times. Goodness knows how many years: I think the ‘Top people take The Times’ promotion in the 1960s or 70s hooked us in. We didn’t become top people, but we greatly value the newspaper. I wasn’t sure about having the leaders on the inside front page, but it’s worked really well. I now read them virtually every day, and they set the tone for the day’s news.”

Actually, he went on to berate us for the main section being too thick and falling apart, but I didn’t want to ruin the Editor’s Boxing Day. Turkey sandwich, anyone?